Difference between Webcomic and Fan Comic?

Reading Homestuck is an experience. I have not read anything like this previously. It made me think of a choose your own adventure book, but it only has one default option and you have to operate through that. The language of the story is very, how should I put it, “hip”. The physical copy of the book that we have to acquire for the class conveys the exact same story as the online version, but just less animated. The story has a very “meta” feel. The narrator keeps on breaking the fourth wall and offering comments about what the main character is doing all the while he is doing them. Some of the actions done by the character is also very random. At once, he is contemplating about “shitting on the desk”, but then on the second page he combines hammer with nails. These seemingly irrational transitions are what made up a lot of the actual transitions. Although it is very bad literally speaking, but it does reflect the how random people actually do things in real life. No wonder it is complimented as the most “pop” webcomic. I also toured the website a bit, the author seemed to have other comics posted, but they were no where near as successful. Homestuck is the only one that has “over 8000 pages” written. It also advertises Merch, printed copies, and music on the website. A full bloom business exist on this web, and it is all due to the success of a comic. I am very intrigues by the contents of Homestuck, and I definitely hope to excavate more information from analyzing the content. Hope it will be a good read.

In “Click and Drag”, Aaron Kashtan discussed the possible reasons behind the continue existence of print copies of webcomics. The importance of printed copies, he argues, is not only limited to the tactile sensations that people desire from hard-copy books, but also other qualities such as gift-ability(the ability to be gifted) and collectibility(the ability to be collected), etc. Although, the web-based fan manga, “Dragon Ball Multiverse”(“Multiverse” for short), that I am currently following does not necessarily sell printed copies, it does use them as incentives to gain support for live events. Namely, they offered limited edition hard-copies for fans to collect if they go to the comic exhibition that “Multiverse” would make an appearance in. In this respect, “Multiverse” behaves like a web comic since there are hardly any materials outside of their website that would be able to tell their story — You can only read the material on the Web. But going back to webcomics in general, hardly any of them exist without a hard copy counterpart if they are the least amount of popular. The hard copies and digital copies complement each other to increase audience and retain them. Contrary to a lot of scholarly predictions, hard-copies do not seem to have their last bit of breath, and they are set to live on longer indefinitely. Which is why, in conclusion, we should start collecting these physical copies now and sell them off for ridiculous amounts of money after the web inevitably shuts down and all information is lost.

After reading the article “Webcomics” written by our dear professor Misemer, I couldn’t help but compare my choice of fan manga with the webcomics mentioned. “Dragonball Multiverse” is a web based, page by page comic that describes a continuous storyline. It also has an active fan base which supports it by contributing huge amounts of views and by donations. However, what differs from other webcomics mentioned is that “Dragonball Multiverse” is based on another established print “Dragonball Z” — it is not based on a completely original concept. It was also a fan creation which deviates from the standard webcomic format. Aside from these differences, “Dragonball Multiverse” is the same as a regular webcomic. It definitely took a ride on the hype train of internet and gained huge amounts of fans and recognition. However, as the time progress, the webcomic might begin to deviate from its online format in pursuit of a physical one to gain more revenue. Hopefully it never does and I could continue to enjoy the free content published every week.

I have made the decision to follow Dragonball Multiverse simply because it is fun. I used to be a huge fan of Dragonball Z and when it ended I was very sad to let it go. Not long after however, I have found my replacement — Dragonball Multiverse, a fan manga which offers stories of alternate possibilities branching off the original manga. I have been following this web series since its debut back in 2008 and watched it blossomed into a lively community. I am excited to have the opportunity to analyze this series further in this class, and I hope to bring an interesting perspective to the discussion table.